


But I Knew I Was Out of Luck

by karyatid



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, skylighter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7114975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karyatid/pseuds/karyatid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He can't tell himself it's not real any longer. Biggs is dead, and Luke has to go through his things</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I Knew I Was Out of Luck

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt at the sw kinkmeme:
> 
> _After the Battle of Yavin, whoever's in charge of the Rebel barracks tells Luke he can go through Biggs' things - someone has to do it, and everyone knows he and Luke were best friends, since Biggs hasn't shut up about the kid since he left Tatooine. Maybe he finds some keepsakes from home, or some holos of them he didn't even know Biggs had, or he takes some of Biggs' clothes, even though they're too big, because they remind him of him?_
> 
> _Biggs/Luke, or one-sided Biggs- >Luke or Luke->Biggs are all good, I just want something sad._
> 
> http://starwarskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/586.html?thread=230218#cmt230218

“You don’t have to,” Wedge says, and Luke realises he’s frozen in the doorway to Biggs’ quarters. Wedge puts a hand on his shoulder, heavy and comforting, and part of Luke wishes, childishly, that he’d stop being so nice. “I just thought, y’know, you were friends.”

“No, it’s ok,” he says quietly. “I was just.” He suddenly feels his throat close. He keeps forgetting it happened. It’s been three days and he still catches himself searching for Biggs’ face in the hangar or the mess hall, still finds himself thinking of things he needs to tell Biggs (‘Chewie showed me this trick to make a weld on a heat-shield stick’, or ‘Ben said my father was really a Jedi knight’, or ‘The Princess kissed me’), only to feel the loss all over again. He swallows thickly.

“Alright,” Wedge says and tightens his grip on Luke’s shoulder briefly before letting go. “See you in the mess later?”

He manages to make himself step inside and when the door shuts behind him it’s very quiet and a little cold. The quarters are small, with only a bunk with drawers for clothes underneath and a narrow shelf above. The bed’s neatly made, with Biggs’ jacket thrown on top in a messy heap. Luke picks it up and sits on the bed. He stares at the jacket in his hands until it turns blurry, his uneven breaths suddenly very loud in the cramped quarters. He can't tell himself it's not real any longer. Biggs is dead, and Luke has to go through his things.

He puts the jacket on, telling himself it’s because of the cold. It’s too large for him, sleeves coming down to his fingertips before he rolls them up. When he sticks his hands in the pockets his right hand touches something rounded, with a rough surface, and he knows what it is before he takes it out. A gnarush shell, pink and blue stripes glittering. 

It was Luke’s grandpa who showed them how to dig for shells, when they were just little kids. In some places, the sand had been the bottom of the sea, long ago, he explained, and seas have all sorts of living things in them. The shells had been home to small creatures, and left behind after they died. Finding them meant luck, since it was a sign of water hidden deep underground. 

He’d saved every shell he found, different sizes and colours, and even as he got older and was no longer content to sit and look at them and lay them in patterns on the floor, he still kept his collection in a box under his bed. 

He puts the shell back in the pocket and looks through the drawers, all neatly folded clothes. He recognizes Biggs’ Academy uniform - most of the former cadets among the rebels seemed to have kept theirs, since civilian clothes were sometimes hard to come by. (Luke’s pretty sure the pants Wedge lent him came from his old uniform, for example.) None of Biggs’ clothes will fit him, but they could be of use to others. 

There’s only a few holobooks on the the shelf above the bed, and he sits on the bed to look them through, opening them one after another. A manual on navigation that Biggs must have taken with him when he left the Academy. One on astromech droid maintenance, a couple on strategy. ‘Great battles of the Clone Wars’ ( _the treasonous plans of the Jedi general, still unknown at this stage_ ). He opens the last one, only to scramble for the off-button immediately, looking to the door in panic. 

The door’s still closed, of course, and he has to laugh at himself. (Biggs would have laughed too, he thinks, and maybe ruffled his hair. ‘You’re such a kid sometimes’) He opens the holobook again and tells himself he’s not blushing as he flips through the first screens. He’s pretty sure even Twi’leks can’t bend like that. If anything, this one’s tamer that the one they borrowed (without asking) from Biggs’ sister years ago. He doesn’t remember much about it, and most of it went over his head, anyway, but he does remember how they sat on Biggs’ bed reading it, shoulders and knees touching, how they kept looking up at each other, giggling, how Biggs blushed all the way down to his collar. 

The last holo is smaller, the kind that only shows a few pictures. There’s Biggs’ parents, more serious than he remembers ever seeing them, as if they knew they were posing for a picture Biggs would keep to remind him of them when he was away. He wonders if they’ve been told yet. The General said they would send word, but that it would take time, being relayed through a complicated network. The threat of retaliation from Imperials looms over all families of rebel soldiers, even on Tatooine. It’s something he’ll never have to worry about, now. He never has to imagine his aunt and uncle being told by some stranger he died, months after the fact, the awful silence when they’re all alone. 

The next holo is of him and Biggs. It must be from a few years ago, Biggs already grown handsome, himself still a scrawny little thing. They’re tinkering with Biggs’ old speeder and neither of them is looking at the holorecorder. You see him turn to say something to Biggs, who smiles in answer. The quality is poor and you can’t really see what Biggs looks like. He stares at the holo, not really seeing the grainy images looping over and over, but Biggs as he looks in Luke’s memories. The time they were alone when he was working on the speeder and Biggs touched the side of his neck before leaning in to kiss him. How his eyes turned darker as he pushed Luke against the wall (and how his own hands shook as he pulled him closer). And he sees Biggs reach out to push his fringe out of his eyes as they lie facing each other, before saying ‘it won’t be long, you know. Just ‘til next year, then you’ll join me.’

The picture of them flickers and disappears as Luke turns it off. He puts the holo in his pocket with the little shell and runs the back of his hand across his eyes. 

\--

“Everything go ok?” Wedge asks later, when they’re in the mess hall. 

“Yeah.” He’d given the clothes to the quartermaster, and left the holobooks on a shelf outside the mess with other leftover holos. He’s still wearing the jacket, but if he looks ridiculous in it Wedge hasn’t said anything. He stares at the soup in front of him. He’s pretty sure he won’t manage to almost-forget that Biggs is dead anymore, not with the sense of loss like an invisible shard of transparisteel lodged into his chest. 

Wedge clears his throat. “You get your X-wing patched up yet?” 

“Wasn’t so bad,” he says, grateful for the change in subject. “And, um, Chewie showed me this trick to make a weld on a heat-shield stick.”

“Yeah? You’ll have to show me,” Wedge says, leaning forward. “Won’t be long until we evacuate now, and”

Luke lets himself be drawn into the conversation, as the other pilots trickle into the mess and join them. He knows Biggs is gone, but also that he won’t be lonely. 

 

End


End file.
